October 30th, 2023 | Issue 113

Welcome! Counter Strike just had a whirlwind of roster news, many players gone, especially one of the best. Check it out!

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In today's edition:

• Call of Duty: CDL Schedule Rumors
• CSGO: WTF Just Happened
• Valorant: Sen Invitational
• Halo: H5
• Top/Bottom Frag
• Upcoming Events
• Tweets of the week
• The Esports Archive

- Thomas and Chris

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Call of Duty: CDL Schedule Rumors

• Rumored rosters for two of the final CDL teams:

— Carolina Royal Ravens: 'Clayster', 'GodRx', 'ReeaL', and possibly 'Fame' or 'Gwinn'

— Las Vegas Legion: 'Attach', 'Standy', 'Nero' and 'Purj' (head coach Fenix)

• According to 'TacticalRab', the following cities are potential Major hosts: ​Texas, Miami, Boston, Carolina, and Toronto
• Rumored The CDL 2023/24 schedule (may change) - FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT NOVEMBER 2nd ​Major 1— Qual: Dec 8-Jan 21— LAN: Jan 25-28​Major 2— Qual: Feb 16-Mar 17— LAN: Mar 21-24​Major 3— Qual: Apr 12-May 12— LAN: May 16-19​Major 4— Qual: May 24-Jun 16— LAN: Jun 20-23​Champs— July 11-14
• The Community is widely displeased with the illustrative schedule given the lack of a Pro-Am, only 4 Majors and a split Major 1 stage around Christmas/New Years
• Other League Schedule rumors (per JakeHaleee):

— Not expecting a Pro-Am this year

— Major 1 likely in Boston

— Winner’s Final likely to be second match on Sunday instead of first

— LAN to have a greater point weighting than online

— There will be a 3-week break during Major 1 qualifiers for the Holidays

• ​Scump says he’s “more and more down” to play Challengers as the game approaches, alongside Nadeshot, BoZe and Methodz

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CSGO: WTF Just Happened

• Y'all, this week was unbelievable in terms of news. So much roster drama and intrigue going on through the top teams due to the release of CS2. Here are the changes that happened in the past week:
  • ​Heroic sign 'Dupreeh' on a short term contract to replace 'Cadian'. A good move on paper to bring in a winner. BUT 'stavn' and 'jabbi' also were implicated in a statement by Heroic that claimed they were responsible for kicking 'Cadian' and signing with Astralis when their contracts were up. So both have been removed from Heroic effective immediately. This practically ends the best Danish and top team in the world and leaves a big hole at the top.
  • ​NIP bench 'hampus' to replace him with 'es3tag' which would leave the Swedish side without a leader. Then two days later bench 'Brollan' to replace him with a mystery IGL to be revealed in the coming weeks. Now this Danish, Swedish, and Ukrainian mix looks like they have no direction. They have struggled immensely, and I don't see this making it any better.
  • ​'Magisk' is set to leave Vitality and join Falcons to reunite with 'zonic'. This isn't the only superstars they are going after. 'NiKo' and 'M0nesy' are both in talks as well but G2 said under no circumstances are they selling 'M0nesy' to any team. But left 'Niko' out of the memo......interesting.
  • ​Cloud9 and 'Sh1r0' have parted ways in a surprise turn of events. They are bringing in 'Boombl4' as a stand-in for the next couple of events. I cannot believe that he decided to step down from the roster considering he is one of the best AWPers of the past few years. This could be due to the team dynamic being changed too much over the past year or the fact that CS2 is not friendly to AWPers. Either way he will make any team better.
  • BREAKING NEWS: 'S1mple' is going to step down from the Navi active roster to focus on personal things as well as citing the AWP being terrible in CS2 as a main reason. He is considering a role switch as well. The best player in the world, the all-time CSGO GOAT will be without a team for a little bit. Unreal news. Navi is looking to 'w0nderful' to replace him.
  • In an X post, 'steel' announced his VAC Ban will be up in 2025 and he will be ready to compete at the top again. Great news for NA who could use a top IGL to reinvigorate the region.
  • The Brazilian scene had some changeups as well. 'B4rtin' rejoins Legacy, 'coldzera' moves to AWP, 'nqz' is benched in a move linked with Pain, and 'KSCERATO' turned down Liquid. All in a week's work for the most volatile scene already.
• ​ESL is going to review the implications of the FaZe x Complexity deal to see if this will be allowed for both teams to compete. If they say no, this will be the end of one of the top rosters right now and they will have to find a new home.

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Valorant: Sen Invitational

• ​The Sen Invitational is starting this weekend featuring Sentinels, MxS, G2, and OXG. All of these rosters had significant overhauls in the offseason so to see them compete against each other will be cool to watch!
• ​Red Bull Home Ground starts this weekend featuring top NA squads, Cloud9 and 100Thieves. Check out both of their new rosters in action against Asia's best and Fnatic.
• ​G2 officially add 'leaf' as their star duelist for VCT 2024. One of the best duelists in NA, his explosive playstyle should bolster this roster stacked with talent. Check out the debut in the Sen Invitational.
• ​'Redgar' steps down from Liquid and joins Giants Gaming. It's hard to see if this move will actually pay off for Liquid and Giants considering how good Liquid did with the 'Redgar'/'nAts' synergy.

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Halo: H5

• ​Halo 5: Guardians was released 8 years ago this past week, leading us to believe we will be playing Infinite for quite some time...
• 'Bubu dubu', 'Falcated', 'Bound' and 'StelluR' win the C9 Halo Infinite $5k Ultimate Open online championship​
• Halo releases a 2023 Championship Bundle with the proceeds of each purchase going towards Halo World Champions - FaZeClan; incredibly epic!

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Top / Bottom Frag

• Top Frag: A perfect retake ace from 'Fl1t'​
• Bottom Frag: A classic full-eco. Nothing better.​

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Upcoming/ongoing events:

• October 27 - November 5: Thunderpick World Championship
• November 3 - November 5: Red Bull Home Ground #4
• November 22 - November 26: Blast Fall Finals

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Tweets of the week:

• ​3?!?​
• ​Warzone streamer decides to travel across America, aiming to win a game of Warzone in all 50 states while playing out of his car​
• ​CDL team LAG have not tweeted since June...​
• ​Scump and ZooMaa are finalists for the Esports Content Creator of the Year award!​
• ​What’s the greatest competitive CoD tweet ever? Killa for sure​
• ​Esports Awards has inducted ​​@Crimsix​​, ​​@MLGPuckett​​, and ​​@ODEEisOG​​ into the Lifetime Achievement Class of 2023​

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The Esports Archive

The 'steel' VAC Ban ending is huge news for NA CS, check out the match that ended probably the greatest team in NA.

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Round 11:

Sincerely, thank you all for reading our newsletter. We would love feedback from you all on what you liked and what you are looking for in future issues. Please fill out this survey below and share with your friends!

Best,

- Thomas and Chris